Book 2: Chapters 15: When The Hunters

  A wet squelching sound erupted from the downed moss creature as Alex pulled his hand from the center of its body. He wasn’t sure how a body constructed of vines, bark, and other foliage could be so… wet, but he didn’t really ask to many question about the physical make-up of the creatures.

  He just focused on killing them.

  “Die fucker!” Kate yelled as she slammed the tip of her blade into the body of a mossling off to the right. This one was in the shape of a beaver-like animal, but Alex wasn’t certain. That didn’t matter either way, as Kate's weapon dug deep into the creature, and her flash of flames erupting from her hand followed afterward, following down the blade an incinerating the construct from the inside.

  He nodded to her and she pulled the her blade free. She gave the barest of nods in return before he dashed away to help Zach who was contending with a rhino sized creature of his own.

  To his left, Alex could see Allie and Holly both ganging up on a large wolf-mossling. Allie tore into it with her daggers, Holly dashed in and out of its reach to slap it on the face with her blade,, mostly to keep its attention so Allie could finish it off.

  Lance took on a giant beetle mossling by himself, large curved sword flashing as earthen spikes sporadically erupted from the ground at his command. Devon and Tom-Tom took turns throwing things at an alligator shaped one, slowly killing the thing in the worst game of pickle Alex had ever seen.

  Due to his garden, Henry had decided to stay behind.

  The hunting group had been out in the forest for about three days now. At first, they simply made it their life’s goal to hunt down and eradicate every one of the badgers they could find who left of the Den Mother’s hive.

  That didn’t take long, as not only were they well versed in the means of badger slaying by now, they were far more powerful at this point, especially Alex and Holly.

  “Forest rodent genocide achievement unlocked?” Devon said after they had hunted down the very last of the things in the area.

  “Possibly,” Lance said.

  “Well, let’s move on to bigger and better game then. I’m barely getting a few experience points per kill for these things anyway.” Allie was impatient, as she was closer and closer to her next intelligence refinement now. Adept Tier then right on its heels.

  It took only a few more hours for the party to find new prey. Or rather, for the prey to begin finding them. As it seemed they had once again stumbled into the area of the forest mosslings.

  Which how Alex had found himself once again elbow deep into a bear shaped collection of bark and leaves. The forest kept throwing the things at them over the last couple of days now.

  None of them had yet been as powerful as the mantis mossling that Alex had fought. He had the suspicion that Sylvaris had lured that thing over to have him fight it. Now though, he was almost hoping more of them would show up. The creatures they were facing now were not at all a fight for him at this point. One of the large mantis mosslings really wouldn’t be either, but he might be able to get triple experience drops in the triple digits from them.

  The experience throttling is going to be the real death of me in this damn forest.

  He was earning a pittance off of these kills, and he was certain it was the same for Holly too. She didn’t seem to mind this fact as much as he did though. She was busy helping push Allie along on her goals.

  “You can try my plan of killing them all for the experience points and loot. It’ll be way faster.” Obby’s form loomed in his vision as he spoke.

  Not happening, just stop already.

  The slender figure huffed and dispersed like an illusion, because it was one.

  Everyone else finished off their target over the next thirty seconds or so, a round of cheers and whoops letting him know they had been getting way better exp drops than he was.

  Don’t get jealous Alex, you have had more than your fair share of experience gained. They need to catch up too.

  Finding that balance between wanting to see his friends grow stronger, while also having that anxious feeling that he was slowly down his progress, was not easy. He was already itching to dive deeper in the forest and try stirring up something stronger, taking a risk and fighting to the bitter edge like he had with the Warden on the dungeon’s third floor.

  But that was crazy, wasn’t it. Wanting to fight and bleed like that for the thrill of it. It could be the Heavenly System trying to skew his emotions once more, it could have been him resonating with the [Demon Asura Style], or it could just be that Alex was changing.

  He didn’t know which option troubled him more.

  “Yes!” Lance gave an exaggerated fist pump. “I have enough experience to refine my vitality and strength once more.”

  The ghostly chilling voice of Zach rolled into Alex’s ears from the right, “Same here.”

  It only took a look at Allie’s face to know she was also ready. Kate and Devon had already made a few breakthroughs after their last group of grass mounds they had ‘slain’.

  “Alright then, fifteen minutes, you both go manage your stats. We meet back up here after. Then I think we should head to the Kobold settlement again, see how Henry is doing and check if the others have made it back by now.”

  They all agreed without complaint and were moving back through the forest before sunset.

  But by then, the wind had shifted.

  They were not far off from the kobold’s territory when dusk just barely began its fall. Something was strange though and Alex stopped walking. His eyes narrowed as the party moved down the ridge path, thick canopy overhead rustling gently in the fading afternoon light.

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  Lance noticed the change first. “What’s wrong?”

  There was a drawn silence as he didn’t answer right away. Instead, his eyes still scanned the tops of the tree, catching the bare glimpses of sky that broke through. He thought it was just a trick of the low lighting at first, but no, it wasn’t, he was certain now.

  He spoke, low. “Smoke.”

  Allie turned, nostrils flaring. “A campfire?”

  “No,” Alex said. “It’s too much for just a campfire or bonefire, too thick. And the wind’s not right for that.”

  Zach jogged up beside him, eyes scanning the sky from Alex’s perspective. “There, look.”

  His eyeline followed where Zach was pointing and it didn’t take long to see what he was pointing at. Through the barest gaps of the treetops, he saw a plume of dark gray. A churning column of dark smoke with orange at the edges, rising in a twisted, unnatural spiral above the kobold valley.

  Devon’s breath caught once he saw it too. “That’s coming from the village.”

  Alex was already moving. The others followed, sprinting behind him to keep up. Holly fell in step next to him, her agility enough to match his own pace.

  They all turned up the pace and hit the trail path hard, their frantic movements scattering birds and startling forest beasts. Twigs snapped and boots pounded dirt along the way. In the cold of night air their breaths came in hot bursts that misted in front of their faces. The smell hit them suddenly, a mixture of burning wood, blood, and stench of wet animal fur.

  And then they heard the screaming.

  They broke into the clearing above the settlement and looked out over the ravine valley where the kobolds had tucked away their little settlement. What they saw sent chills down Alex’s spine.

  Hell had arrived early. The kobold village was on fire.

  Tents were torn apart, defensive totems shattered and scattered about. A half-dozen huts were smoldering, flames licking at the edges of the barricades around various tunnel entrances. Craters marked where spells had detonated. All across the entire valley, blood smeared the dirt like paint.

  And everywhere amidst the chaos of running kobolds, were wolves. Not normal wolves. Arcane beasts, large, hungry, and deadly down to the last tooth. Thick-coated beasts with bones like ironwood and eyes alight with the flames of death. They moved about the tents in coordinated packs, snapping through kobold defenses like paper. Some darted in with preternatural speed, others pounced with elemental auras that flashed of ice, trails of shadow, bursts of concussive force.

  Then the Adept appeared.

  Everyone could see its massive form as it strode leisurely through the carnage. Towering above the rest of the beasts, it was easily longer than a horse, and thicker at the shoulders than a damn brown bear. Its coat shimmered and shifted from charcoal black to arcane silver, and then back again. Its back flickered with glowing runes etched along its exposed and protruding spine. Its eyes burned golden-red hot, and the deep reverberations of its growl rattled Alex’s bones even from the distance up on the ravine.

  He could feel the quality of the beast’s aether. It wasn’t a low stage Adept. The beast's energy was certainly gaseous stage and thus on its path to forming a liquid Aether Core. He knew even the kobold Chieftain’s core wasn’t the same quality. He knew this for certain as he could feel its quality compared the Chieftain as the two stared each other down.

  The Chieftain stood in its path, his shoulder bleeding, staff cracked, three kobold adept warriors standing beside him. Based on the bodies that lay nearby, they were the last of the Adept tier fighters the kobolds had.

  They were losing, badly.

  Alex didn’t hesitate. “Move in!”

  The team didn’t ask questions, they scattered like insects into the valley.

  Zach charged forward from the shadows with his spear raised, intercepting a pair of wolves mid-lunge, the clang of enchanted steel echoing through the valley. Devon threw down a rune disc that erupted in a strangely pulling gravitational pulse, yanking three lesser wolves into a heap. Lance followed with a cleave of his sword that pulled razor sharp spears of rock from the dirt.

  “Push to the back wall!” Alex shouted. “Defend the main tunnel entrance!”

  Tom-Tom already had a firebomb in the air. “You! Shall not! Eat my brethren!” The explosion from his vial caught a pair mid-leap. Flames engulfed the two, causing them to flounder in the dirt as they burned, but more surged from the trees behind.

  Holly and Allie moved in tandem, one sweeping low with a crescent shaped blade of wind from a sword, the other dashing between enemies, daggers catching soft underbellies and exposed ribs.

  “Watch left!” Kate barked, sending a lance of searing fire essence into a charging beast’s mouth, incinerating the beast from the inside out.

  Henry stood behind her, casting a large dome-shaped water barrier around a cluster of retreating kobold children. Alex at least knew the burly man was safe in the chaos. He wasn’t certain of Henry’s fate since he had stayed behind to tend his plants.

  By that time, Devon had ducked into a burned-out hut, scrawling a circle of enhancement glyphs around himself, then launched a steady stream of force outward, slowing the wolves’ advance by half.

  And then came the moment. The Adept wolf turned its golden eyes on Alex. He looked back at the wolf, and smiled.

  He moved in a blur, the [Demon Asura Style] fully engaged, and his feet skimming the dirt as he ran, fists already wrapped in the blue-black aura of the [Burning Fist]. He was forced to duck under a claw swipe that contained enough force to tear a tree in half and then drove his palm straight upward into the beast’s snout. Aether rippled down his arm and into his nose, through its skull. The shock seemed to startle it as it howled, staggered a step, but didn’t fall. With a quick shake of its head, it re-grounded its footing and came back harder.

  Its golden eyes glowed like embers at the bottom of an inferno. Alex’s attack hadn’t left the creature wounded, but it was challenged, angry. And it was far from done.

  He landed hard from a palm strike, boots skidding through scorched dirt. His forearms were numb as he was forced to block a shoulder charge from the wolf. The clash had cracked something deep in his bones despite his immense strength and vitality stats. Blood slid down his jaw, and a line of pain throbbed down his ribs.

  What the fuck, this thing hits like a semi-truck.

  The sheer strength and power Alex felt behind the wolf’s blow was immense. More than what the Chieftain had hit him with in their little scuffle. It was a level of strength that showed Alex the gap between even the stages in the Adept Tier.

  The beast wasn’t a monster, it was a force of nature.

  “Fall back!” Alex shouted. “This one’s out of our league!”

  But the three Adept-tier kobold warriors didn’t listen, not to him.

  They roared their war cry, proud, fierce, and defiant, and surged toward the wolf in a V-formation. The beast was not worried, it met them with silence.

  What followed was brutal.

  One kobold struck true, a spear of lightning sinking into the beast’s left shoulder, but it wasn’t enough. The wolf twisted, fangs flashing, and bit down through the kobold’s midsection with a sickening crunch.

  Another leapt high, aiming for the spine, but was caught midair by a large claw swipe and thrown like a ragdoll into a burning hut. The last died with claws sunk through his chest, blood boiling off the wolf’s arcane hide.

  Alex moved to try to help, but he was too slow.

  For a moment the battlefield felt frozen, only one still standing between the monster and the heart of the village now: the Chieftain.

  His staff sparked to life in one hand, red crystal flaring with stormlight. In his other hand a large sword carved from bone pulsed with greenish runes. To his credit, he didn’t speak, didn’t roar. He just charged.

  The two collided, staff against claw, bone against teeth, aether against instinct, and will against fury. He watched as the impact split the air like thunder. Alex could barely track them. Only flashes, red arcs of lightning. The Chieftain’s staff carving sigils through the smoke. The wolf ducking, spinning, biting, and the flares of bluish purple flames that ignited from his mouth and fur.

  It was only a handful of seconds, maybe even less, time was stretched and compacted for Alex at the same time as he watched them. The wolf’s shoulder gushed black ichor. The Chieftain’s chest was torn wide. They staggered a moment, then clashed again.

  And then—

  The wolf howled. A long, keening note that vibrated in the lungs and pierced the soul. The wave of sound bucked Alex against a fire charred hut, re-breaking the ribs he was certain had cracked just a minute before.

  Every lesser beast in the valley answered, turning tail and vanishing into the treeline like ghosts. The Adept wolf didn’t stay to finish the fight. Because it didn’t need to. It stepped back slowly, golden eyes still locked on the Chieftain, who stood barely upright, blood pouring down his side. Then the beast vanished into the forest, wounded but proud, victorious. It took only a moment before fading into shadow.

  Ash drifted on the wind, screams danced over the tents and huts of smoldering wood. The embers of the remaining fire drifted on the air in dotted rows and columns, like a graveyard of fireflies.

  Among the wreckage, Alex stood, his chest heaving. The kobold warriors around him lay still. The flames still burned. And the Chieftain...

  He dropped to one knee, then fell to the dirt, unconscious, his body showing a broken map of claw marks and cracked scales.

  Allie rushed forward, already calling for water and bandages. Kate grabbed Devon and barked for him to activate any stabilizing glyphs he had. Alex didn’t speak.

  He looked out at the darkness of the treeline, where the wolf had gone. Then he looked back down at the ruined village below him, at the smoke curling around the bodies of the dead.

  They hadn’t won this fight.